I have been attending an Antiochian parish lately, where all of the services are in English. Having attended mostly Greek and Russian parishes in the past, I am unfamiliar with some of the Antiochian melodies. I am wondering if there are any resources for learning the Antiochian liturgical melodies. English would be most helpful, but not necessary. I have been here: http://www.antiochian.org/music/library . I would especially love an English CD of the Antiochian style Divine Liturgy so that I can practice singing along and familiarize myself. Can anyone direct me to any decent resources or recordings?

I have been attending an Antiochian parish lately, where all of the services are in English. Having attended mostly Greek and Russian parishes in the past, I am unfamiliar with some of the Antiochian melodies. I am wondering if there are any resources for learning the Antiochian liturgical melodies. English would be most helpful, but not necessary. I have been here: http://www.antiochian.org/music/library . I would especially love an English CD of the Antiochian style Divine Liturgy so that I can practice singing along and familiarize myself. Can anyone direct me to any decent resources or recordings?

Thanks in advance.

I am not sure what you mean by Antiochian melodies. If you attended a Greek church and the Antiochian parish uses Byzantine Chant then the two are very similar. If the Antiochian parish has a choir that uses 4 part harmonies then they are using Russian music.

What I am guessing is happening is you are going to a parish that has poor musical training and they are butchering the music to something unrecognizable.

I have been attending an Antiochian parish lately, where all of the services are in English. Having attended mostly Greek and Russian parishes in the past, I am unfamiliar with some of the Antiochian melodies. I am wondering if there are any resources for learning the Antiochian liturgical melodies. English would be most helpful, but not necessary. I have been here: http://www.antiochian.org/music/library . I would especially love an English CD of the Antiochian style Divine Liturgy so that I can practice singing along and familiarize myself. Can anyone direct me to any decent resources or recordings?

Thanks in advance.

I am not sure what you mean by Antiochian melodies. If you attended a Greek church and the Antiochian parish uses Byzantine Chant then the two are very similar. If the Antiochian parish has a choir that uses 4 part harmonies then they are using Russian music.

What I am guessing is happening is you are going to a parish that has poor musical training and they are butchering the music to something unrecognizable.

Well... there is only one full-time female chanter, and she is not butchering anything. She is excellent. The parishioners all sing along, and the melody sometimes kind of gets... lost. However, I recognize many of the melodies as being Byzantine-ish, but some have strange middle-eastern sounding parts. And some of the melodies don't sound Russian or Byzantine, frankly. At least, not to my ears.

Well... there is only one full-time female chanter, and she is not butchering anything. She is excellent. The parishioners all sing along, and the melody sometimes kind of gets... lost. However, I recognize many of the melodies as being Byzantine-ish, but some have strange middle-eastern sounding parts. And some of the melodies don't sound Russian or Byzantine, frankly. At least, not to my ears.

The Antiochian Archdiocese has had a project to put Byzantine melodies into modern notation and apply them to many of the hymns that a choir may sing. A treasury of such material is available at http://www.antiochian.org/music/library

BTW, although my exposure to female chanters has been very limited, I have found them to be uniformly good. On the other hand, about half of the male chanters that I have listened to have been just awful.

Just this last weekend I purchased and downloaded "Sing Praises - Orthodox Christinan Hymns sung by Teen Soyo" from Amazon. I love it, it reminds me of my home church. Perhaps that will help. By the way "Teen Soyo" from what I can gather so far is sort of an Antiochian youth group, I think.

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